


Moriarty's House of Horrors

by peekababyboo



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Chapter one, Fan - Freeform, Horror, Johnlock - Freeform, Sherlock - Freeform, Sherlock Season 5, Thriller, chapters, house of horrors, peekababyboo, season 4
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-26
Updated: 2017-01-26
Packaged: 2018-09-20 02:15:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9471011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peekababyboo/pseuds/peekababyboo
Summary: After the death of Mary Watson has left John struggling and grieving, a surprise package is the last thing that he wants to be dealing with. A note left inside the package alongside the extraordinarily unexpected 'gift' appears to be some sort of invite...to a real-life house of horrors...





	

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to the first chapter of Moriarty's House of Horrors. This will be an ongoing piece so if you would like to be updated when I release a new chapter (I aim to write a minimum of one chapter each week, but hopefully two) give this work a bookmark and maybe throw in a 'like' or a comment for good measure. 
> 
> I read and reply to all of the comments that I receive so if you have any requests for what you would like me to include in the next chapter or later on in the story, let me know! 
> 
> Enjoy...

The wife of Doctor John Watson is dead. 

She is lying flat on her back, her skin paler than the snow that falls in December and her murky green eyes are closed tightly forever. A soft, silk scarf is draped elegantly around her neck and a light dusting of blush has been added to her cheeks to create the illusion of life that escaped her body merely a week ago. However, the blush and the rose lipstick pressed against her lips isn’t enough to fool anybody, for Mary Watson looks just like any other corpse. 

Rigor mortis had begun to stiffen her entire body days ago, with a vile puddle of purple bruising forming along the base of her body where gravity had allowed the blood to pool and darken. The stretch marks that formed around her once pregnant belly had deepened in colour and were now scattered mercilessly across her stomach and thighs – scars which were only ever met by her husband’s eyes. As she laid face up in her coffin wearing the wedding dress that she wore on the day that she vowed to dedicate her life to her doctor, she looked just like any other normal and beautiful bride.

A beautifully dead bride.

John Watson stood beside the coffin set at the front of the church, his head hung low and tears pouring unforgivingly in streams down his cheeks and staining his shirt as they heavily splattered down. His left hand was balled into a tight fist and he trembled, his right hand clutching his walking stick and clicking loudly against the stone floor with each violent shudder that ran through his body. John hadn’t used his walking stick in years, but since Mary was shot his knees often gave way and he felt weak. The soldier was fragile without his wife. 

John reached a nervous hand into the coffin and inhaled sharply when he felt the coldness of Mary’s hand as he intertwined their fingers together one final time. Tears continued to drip and he kept a tight grip of Mary’s hand until it was time to seal the lid of the coffin. Sherlock cautiously approached the coffin and rested his hand on John’s shoulder. At first, John tried to shrug away from Sherlock and he held onto Mary’s hand even tighter, staring at the engagement and wedding rings that wrapped themselves around her finger. He let out a loud sob as Sherlock firmly took hold of John’s shoulder once again as the priest and another man dressed entirely in black closed and secured the lid of the coffin. 

Everyone seated in the pews were staring into their laps or looking up at the ceiling – they were looking in any direction that John wasn’t. Nobody could bare to look at the poor doctor who stood crying into his best friend’s chest, grasping his stick so that he wouldn’t crumple into a heap on the floor before them. No-one knew what was harder to witness; the funeral of Mary, or the breaking down of their beloved Doctor Watson. 

Little Rosie was sat in Mrs Hudson’s lap a few rows back, her big blue eyes taking in everything she saw. She had no idea what was going on, for she was barely six months old. For Rosie, today was just like any other day. There was nothing special here for her. The only thing on the baby’s mind would be when her next feed would be…and in another year, she wouldn’t have a clue who Mary Watson was. Mary Watson will just be a blank space in Rosie’s mind, a name without a face, and Rosie would never be able to shed a tear for her mother who she never properly knew. 

After the service finally ended, the mourners slowly began to peel away from the church in small groups of no more than four, holding sopping wet tissues. The women were wiping at the makeup that was smeared messily around their eyes and trying to remove the clumps of wet mascara that were clinging desperately to their lashes. Some of the men took their wives by the arm and guided them out to their cars while others wandered over to the benches surrounding the cemetery and pulled their coats tightly around their bodies to avoid catching a chill. But one thing that everybody had in common was that nobody spoke a word. The silence was painful, and for John it felt like everybody was screaming. His ears were ringing and he couldn’t hear when people tried to talk to him. Not that he wanted to hear them, he just wanted to hear Mary’s voice one last time. 

“Maybe she faked her death just like Sherlock did?” He caught himself thinking. But deep down, he knew that wasn’t possible. He had held her hand, saw her ring and kissed her ice cold cheek goodnight. Mary was as dead as the rest of the people they saw in the morgue, and she wasn’t ever going to be coming back.

 

* * *

 

John moped around the flat aimlessly for the next few days, his stick accompanying him wherever he went. He would sit in his armchair staring out of the window with a glazed look in his eyes, completely oblivious to everything else around him. The kettle would screech to announce that it was ready to pour out its boiling contents into a cup, but the doctor never heard it. He just continued to stare out of the window as he took in the drizzly streets of London from the pathetic safety of his chair. All Sherlock was able to do was take the seat across from his friend, and sit with him in an awkward yet comforting silence.

Days rolled into weeks and Sherlock was beginning to grow increasingly bored of staying in the flat; he had only ventured outside with John once, maybe twice, to visit the Sainsbury’s Local on the corner to grab a packet of digestives, a few pints of milk and a pack of PG Tips teabags. Even Detective Lestrade hadn’t nipped into the flat with a case file in hand and a stupidly childish grin on his face as he often did on a weekly basis. There had been no cases, no murder and no fun. 

Why couldn’t somebody just hurry up and die already?

The sound of slippers shuffling up the stairs filled the silence of the flat. A little huffing sound here and there told Sherlock that Mrs Hudson was making her way to their door and she was clearly carrying something fairly heavy. The rustling of the paper concealing the item suggested that she was holding a package of some sort…but it was probably just something of Mary’s that an old friend of hers had found and was sending over to John as a keepsake; nothing to interest the consulting detective who was slouched in his arm chair entranced in a mind-numbing state of boredom and he gawped at the ceiling, wondering whether or not John would notice if he took a small dose of cocaine to ease the monotony of his current day-to-day life. 

“Boys, you’ve got a package!” Mrs Hudson smiled kindly as she entered the flat and stood with her arms outstretched holding the package in front of the two men. “But there’s nothing attached to say who it’s from.” Neither John nor Sherlock budged from their positions and they both failed to acknowledge their landlady’s presence in the room. Mrs Hudson sighed and dropped her arms, fiddling with the brown wrapping on the parcel. “I’ll open it for you then, it might be for John.” Sherlock continued to stare at the ceiling, his fantasy about injecting himself with cocaine becoming increasingly persuading. He was just beginning to think about which stash of his emergency drug he should use when a sharp shriek broke his train of thought. He snapped his gaze over to where Mrs Hudson had been standing before she had left the room screaming, and his eyes fell to stare at the bloody mess that was seeping all over the floor.  
John’s eyes widened as he noticed the gory mess splashed across the carpet, his lips slightly parted in shock. Sherlock rose from his seat and slowly made his way over to the package that was lying on the floor, his eyes darting around quickly as he began to work out what the hell was staining his carpet.

“Hand me your stick,” Sherlock reached his hand out to John, not taking his eyes off the package as he did so. John silently handed Sherlock his walking stick, his gaze also fixed on the package. Sherlock took the stick and began to poke at the wrapping on the floor, consequently covering the bottom of the walking stick in red bodily fluid.  
Sherlock pushed the wrapping further away and his eyes slowly began to light up, revealing a cheeky glint in them as his mouth twitched into a smirk. He poked at the parcel a little longer and eventually, the things inside the wrapping became unstuck and rolled along the floor towards him. They left a dirty trail of white, brown and red liquid and they only stopped rolling when they reached the toe of Sherlock’s shoe as they bowled straight into the leather.

A pair of bright, baby blue eyes stared up at Sherlock, unblinking. An eyelash was even stuck to the centre of one of the eyes, while the other eye had a chunk of flesh that would have probably once had been an eyelid stuck fast to the eye. Both eyes had numerous small scratches on them and one scratch in particular that was on the back of the eye was gaping open slightly, a few unknown fluids gently spilling out of it.  
John gagged and clasped his hand over his mouth and turned his head and his body in the opposite direction of the gore. Sherlock took a pair of tweezers from the mantelpiece and returned to the package and gave each of the eyes a poke to confirm that they were in face real human eyes. They were. 

A small piece of yellowed paper was resting on top of the little lake of blood. On it, in a typed font of some kind read the following:

I would like to formally invite Mr Sherlock Holmes and Doctor John Watson to attend the grand opening of my personalised ‘House of Horror’. The rules to the game are as follows: there will be ten rooms with a task and a London citizen in each room. Complete the task and the person in that room gets to walk free. Fail, and we all get to have the utmost pleasure in watching them die. You should already know by now that no real detectives are welcome or each of them will instantly be executed. This event is invite only! 

Did you miss me?

M.

Sherlock rose from his crouched position beside the package and looked over at John who was gagging and forcibly trying to stop himself from throwing up. John stared back at Sherlock, his eyes full of bewilderment and fear. Sherlock gave a soft smile in return.

“The game is on.”

**Author's Note:**

> If you liked this first chapter please be sure to click the kudos tab and leave a comment below with your requests, opinions and critiques. Thank you for reading, and I will be sure to see you in the next chapter!


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